


Morality Above All

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Child Abuse, Forced Marriage, Gen, Original Character(s), Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 04:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15380850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	Morality Above All

Normally, they didn’t take these types of cases, but Andi Swann from the Domestic Trafficking Task Force begged for their help in the case of a child bride that had been married off to her rapist in Florida.

At just 10 years old, Desiree Jadin, Desi for short, had been raped by a man of the church only to have her mother tell her she was pregnant and she’d be having a baby of her own. Instead of bringing charges against the rapist, she allowed her little girl to be married off to the man that harmed her - and because of the laws on the books, it was all legal. 

“How did you come across this case then?” Hotch asked Swann. “This isn’t any more your normal case than mine.”

Swann sat down at Hotch’s desk and rubbed her temples. Her work was rewarding, but dammit if she wasn’t exhausted. “Desiree’s aunt, her mother’s sister, Mariah Jacobson knows Agent Saywer who knows me. He told her to talk to me and I couldn’t say no. She said the moment she found out about Desiree she came to me. She wants to track her down and take her home.”

As Hotch flipped through the files, he could feel the bile coat his stomach. This was legal. Just proof that legality and morality didn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. “If we’re able to there’s no saying that we’ll be able to get the marriage overturned.” It was disgusting but true.

“Mariah told me that if we found Desi for her, she would do the rest.” Mariah and her sister, Desi’s mother, never got along and when she found out about her niece she was disgusted. “She said, and I quote ‘I will sooner sell my soul than see her with that man a day longer than she has been.’ Hotch we need to find her. Please?”

“I’ll take the files to the team. We’ll get her home Andi.”

——

The moment Hotch had given the team the files, they’d hit the ground running. Penelope’s blood boiled as she ran to her lair to do some digging into the girl’s “husband’s” past. From the time he was a child, he’d been a troublemaker. His school had disciplined him multiple times for getting aggressive with women, but nothing had ever been done because of his own father was also a man of the church. 

“How is this legal? How?” JJ screamed. Fired up with anger, she paced the room as she read over the files again. All she could imagine were her own boys. She’d sooner die than send them off with someone that hurt them. What parent does that? She wanted to find Desiree’s mother and put a bullet in her head. “What kind of parents does this?” She couldn’t keep it in.

Hotch placed his hand on her shoulder and she flinched. “JJ, we need to keep our heads on straight.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Her voice got louder and louder as she spoke. “How am I supposed to do that when there’s a little girl pregnant with her rapist’s child and married to him by her mother?!”

With a slight shift in eye line, Hotch asked JJ to follow him to her office. “I know this is disgusting, but if we want to find her, we need to keep our heads on.”

“I know, I know,” she said, spinning around on her heels with her hands thrown up in exasperation. She brought her fingers through her hair and turned to him again. “I just…”

Hotch nodded. “It makes you question who we work for, doesn’t it? Makes you sick to your stomach as a parent?”

JJ’s eyes pierced Hotch’s as they both sat down to take a breather. They’d all been looking at files for nearly a day straight - they could take a few minutes to compose themselves. “How do we work for a government that allows this? It just makes me sick. It should be morality above all, not legality.” Bending forward, she knocked her head against the desk repeatedly. 

“It should be,” he sighed. “But morality is seen as subjective while legality is seen as objective.”

“But it’s not! Not always, anyway,” she said, realizing that she was about to send herself into a tailspin again. “There are rights, wrongs and gray areas. The laws should focus on the gray areas. Marrying a child to her rapist? How does anyone anywhere think that’s okay?”

As a former lawyer, Hotch understood the trickiness of words in regards to written law. “Sometimes it doesn’t say it outright, it’s what the laws don’t say that lawyers exploit.”

“No wonder you stopped being a lawyer,” she laughed softly. “I’m just so glad we don’t come across the cases a lot with the BAU because I don’t know if I could handle it. I think I’d lose my mind.”

“You’re stronger than you think,” Hotch assured her. “I think your maternal instinct would allow you to last longer than anyone.”

Maybe. Or she’d break the quickest because the job would wear on her more than anyone else. “We should get back to work,” she said.”

With an unceremonious nod, he stood up and opened the door for her. It was time to bring Desi home.

——

After nearly two days of non-stop searching through files and digging through his background, the BAU found who they were looking for - in a small house outside of an even smaller town near Boulder, Colorado. Jonathan Veil, now Peter Quaker had a relative out that way that housed them for a while. 

Though presumably his family knew the truth, he told the rest of those around him that Desiree was a troubled teenage cousin that showed up at his doorstep. Of course he couldn’t send her away. Even with his strong stomach, Hotch almost threw up when he found out. 

On the flight out, the team grabbed what sleep they could. In this line of work, sleep was hard to come by and rarely restful, so they did what they could. It took them five hours to get there, but once they did, Hotch and JJ accompanied Andi Swann and her team to the house in question. 

The scumbag known as Peter Quaker opened the door, cocky as all hell that he had some backwards ass law on his side. “Can I help you?”

“We’re here for Desiree,” Swann said. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“Our marriage is legal, Suit. She ain’t going anywhere.” Before he could fight her any further, she took out her gun and backed him into the house, keeping on eye on him so Hotch and JJ could find the girl. 

JJ found her upstairs. “Desiree,” she questioned softly. The young girl was small enough that despite the early stage in her pregnancy, anyone would still be able to tell. “My name is JJ. I’m from the FBI and we’re here to take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home. My mother made me come here.”

Again, a fiery hatred rolled through every fiber of JJ’s body. “Not your mother. Your Aunt Mariah. She wants you to live with her.”

“Really?” Despite all she’d been through, the light still shined in her eyes; she had hope. “You mean I don’t have to stay here with him?”

“No, sweetie. You’re going home.” She slipped her hand around the young girl’s and led her downstairs, where the man in question was in handcuffs. 

He writhed on the floor underneath Swann’s tough grip. “Don’t touch her! She’s mine!” He screamed.

JJ motioned for Desiree to remain where she stood for a moment. “She’s not yours anymore you sick son of a bitch,” she said. No one could deny they enjoyed the sound of JJ’s heel knocking into his nose.

“You broke my nose, you bitch! I’m having you charged with assault!”

Hotch sneered down at the rapist. “Why would she be charged? I didn’t see anything. You Swann?”

“No,” she laughed. “Just our unsub tripping while trying to evade capture. Must’ve tripped into the counter or something.” 

That only angered him even more, but no one seemed to care, least of all Desiree. With him in cuffs, she turned to him before leaving the house. “I hate you.”

JJ dared for any judge to look her in the eye and tell her she was wrong.


End file.
